Little Brown Dress + More

Have you heard of the "Little Brown Dress" project? It took place back in 05 - 06. Alex Martin, a dancer and choreographer, made one dress and wore it every day for a year. About the project, she wrote: "I made one small, personal attempt to confront consumerism by refusing to change my dress for 365 days." You can watch a great little video about the project here. And you can read her journal from the year here. The main page for the project is here, where you'll learn that after the project was over, some "pranksters" stole the dress.

The next year she committed herself to wearing only clothes she made herself, everything from "fancy clothes" to underwear, and everything reconstructed or recycled. The project didn't receive as much attention as the Little Brown Dress and she didn't blog about it as much, but you can find info here.

Now, I check up on a new project just about every day. And, in some ways, this project is the opposite of Little Brown Dress. For her MFA thesis in printmaking, Jodi Green will never wear the exact same dress or skirt twice. She'll actually wear some of the same clothing, but each time she wears a piece, it has to be altered with printing or drawing or sewing from the last time she wore it. Since this is a current, ongoing project, it's fun to keep up with the changes as she makes them in "real time." Her blog about it (with lots of pics) is here. I also like that she has the site organized both chronologically and by article of clothing, so you can see the progress of a specific dress or skirt through its many alterations.

In the meantime, in my little world, I'm getting over what I hope is a short but intense flu/cold/congestion thing. And, I'm working on a few web projects and making progress on poems. (Yay! I've been wanting to say that for awhile.) And, as soon as I stop coughing up a lung, I'm going to have lunch at the new café in town, located in the Kentucky Appalachian Artisans Center.

That's the news for now. More later...